Report: College graduates with high debt face long-term health issues

According to a new study viaGallup.com, college graduates “who took on the highest amounts of student debt, $50,000 or more, are less likely than their fellow graduates who did not borrow for college to be thriving in four of five elements of well-being: purpose, financial, community, and physical.”

In short, debt may cause negative health issues.

The survey has an area of 25-years as Gallup only polled individuals who graduated college between 1990-2014. What the study found is that graduates who are burdened with $50,000 or more in student loan debt may struggle to repay their loans, which in turn has causes them to delay making large purchases, e.g. buying a new home.

Those saddled with debt are unable to save as much as their counterparts who do not have as much debt or none at all, and Gallup’s “thriving gap,” percentages between those with $50,000 in debt less the percentage of student’s without it, shows an 11 point percentage spread between the two parties.

Thestudyalso found that more recent college graduates seem to be performing worse than those who graduated prior to 2000. Those who obtained a college degree between the years of 1990-1999 are doing better socially, physically, and in purpose.

What this inquiry portends is that the government and colleges and universities will have to seriously tackle the issue of rising tuition costs as well as student loan debt.

Because student loan debt now outweighs credit card debt and has surpassed $1 trillion, America has a full blown fiscal crisis on its hands. With wage growth still stagnant and many individuals going without full employment, this crisis will likely get worse. That will mean more health issues and many former graduates with void savings accounts as well.

Matthew Lynch

Dr. Lynch is an award winning writer, activist. He spent seven years as a K-12 teacher – an experience that gave him an intimate view of the challenges facing genuine education reform.

With that experience behind him, he has focused the second stage of his career on researching topics related to education reform, the achievement gap, and teacher education. What Dr. Lynch has found is that improving teacher education is an essential component in closing the achievement gap.

Dr. Lynch's articles and op eds appear regularly in the Huffington Post, Diverse: Issues in Higher Education, and Education Week. He's also written numerous peer-reviewed articles, which have appeared in academic journals such as AASA Journal of Scholarship & Practice, International Journal of Progressive Education, Academic Leadership Journal, and others. In addition, he has authored and edited a number of books on school reform and school leadership.

Please visit his website at www.drmattlynch.com for more information.

There Are 3 Comments for This Post

sarahrose00 ·
April 10, 2015 7:44 pm

I can see the direct correlation between high amounts of debt and well being. I would be weighed down if I had the huge burden of tens of thousands of dollars I needed to repay, but a salary that didn’t make that easy.

Students may face long term health issues, and I am sorry to hear that, but we still need to encourage them to obtain their degrees. They’ll struggle more if they don’t go to college and make little money and work stressful jobs.

It saddens me that so many students are saddled with such huge sums of debt — but I still think it’s worth it for these young adults to attend college. The direct correlation with long term health issues doesn’t really shock me, but it is very unfortunate. That type of stress and worry about repaying those dollars, I imagine, are very bothersome.

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